Randall Jones
I agree that the discontinuity of actual occasions does not happen in time. Rather, “time” is the succession of actual occasions. I put time in quotes because it seems a rather different kind of time compared to what I ordinarily think of as time. If there were no succession of actual occasions, there would be no time. I would guess, without thinking more about it, that succession of actual occasions suggests that they are discrete. The everlasting nature of God does throw a wrench into it and I don’t know how Whitehead thought of the actual occasion that is God. Is God a society or a single occasion or what.
I like the image of God breathing us in and out – it sounds rather Indian to me (Hindu) for some reason, maybe just that I can so easily picture it as one of those wonderful if “somewhat” garish Indian religious pictures. (I say wonderful without irony – I love them. Somewhere I have a great picture of Arjuna and Lord Krishna in the chariot that is on metal – or perhaps I had it in a previous occasion – not sure. Anyway, it’s a very shiny picture. (I’ll ignore for the moment that the occasion it depicts was an argument for caste-duty, hence for caste.))
I also loved the methapor of God as midwife, birthing with Cosmos, and undertaker – loving undertaker. Aren’t we all undertakers? In each perishing moment taking on the task at hand, undertaking what is to be done? (At first I didn’t like the undertaker, but now I rather do.)
The first sentence of Chapter I of Process and Reality reads: “This course of lectures is designed as an essay in Speculative Philosophy.” So I guess Kant and Whitehead would have been in agreement as to what Whitehead’s work was. They might have been in great disagreement as to the value of Speculative Philosophy.
I love Kant and I may come to love Whitehead but that will require a bit of compartmentalization. And it is the Second Critique that I really love. I love Plato too, well, maybe “Socrates,” and I’m pretty sure Whitehead also did. I don’t have an intuition as to how he felt about Kant but I suspect he would have valued all the giants.
I thought (and my thoughts are just that – I can’t claim much familiarity with Whitehead’s thoughts) that actual entities were the drops of becoming which comprise the universe. I don’t think actual entities are processes of becoming actual, they are actual by definition.
PR 77: (vi) the term “actual occasion” is used synonymously with “actual entity”; but chiefly when its character of extensiveness has some direct relevance to the discussion, either extensiveness in the form of temporal extensiveness, that is to say “duration,” or extensiveness in the form of spatial extension, or in the more complete signification of spatio-temporal extensiveness.
Paula, thank you. This certainly resonates with me. There have been places where the connection to a long ago but still shared past has been especially strong, also a connection to something more than us. I am thinking of the Aesclepion in Bergama, Turkey, as I write this. That was a very “thin place” for me. It was stones there too.
Thank you, Dr. McDaniel. I had only time to read Dr. Cobb’s chapter today but am looking forward to continuing to work on these new to-read entries.
Thank you. I was going to respond here but ended up posting the meanderings your post elicited as a new post.